Harvest with a pedigree / Heirloom tomatoes and produce, beloved by cooks and consumers, are having their moment in the sun

Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, August 9, 2006

Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez

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Bruschetta with Fresh Ricotta and Cherry Tomatoes.
Photo by Carlos Avila Gonzalez/The San Francisco Chronicle
Photo taken on 8/1/06, in San Francisco, Ca, USA
**All names cq (source) MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE/ -MAGS OUT less

Late-Summer Heirlooms -- Here are some of the heirloom varieties you might find in the markets over the next few weeks, and how they should taste. Chronicle photos by Jim Merithew and Peter DaSilva

Late-Summer Heirlooms -- Here are some of the heirloom varieties you might find in the markets over the next few weeks, and how they should taste. Chronicle photos by Jim Merithew and Peter DaSilva

Harvest with a pedigree / Heirloom tomatoes and produce, beloved by cooks and consumers, are having their moment in the sun

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In the days before we knew our fruits and vegetables by name, a tomato was just a tomato. Now it's a Brandywine, a Marvel Stripe or a Mortgage Lifter. The eggplant du jour is the Rosa Bianca, radishes must be French Breakfast, and the hippest beets are the striped Chioggia. If you're still buying plain old potatoes instead of German Butterballs or Russian Banana fingerlings, how boring is that?

As the summer produce displays in Bay Area markets emphatically prove, shoppers and growers are smitten with heirlooms, the old and often charmingly named varieties that have upstaged modern hybrids.

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Passed down among farmers and backyard gardeners for generations, heirloom seeds have revitalized the produce business, introducing color, variety and flavor to shoppers who may once have thought all beets were red.

Capay Fruits and Vegetables, a small family farm in California's Yolo County, harvests 30,000 to 40,000 pounds of heirloom tomatoes a week at the height of summer for stores such as Whole Foods, Mollie Stone's and Andronico's.

But as prices for heritage varieties soar -- heirloom tomatoes can fetch $3 a pound and more -- consumers may be wondering what their dollars really buy. Although many expect heirlooms to have consistently superior taste, and some may imagine that they are farmed more sustainably, the word "heirloom" in fact doesn't guarantee either.

"We like to say (heirlooms) are varieties that have a history, that have been kept in a family, varieties that you could specifically tie to a group of people or an era," says Aaron Whaley of Seed Savers Exchange, an heirloom seed supplier in Decorah, Iowa.

Aunt Ruby's German Green tomato or Jimmy Nardello's Sweet Italian Frying Pepper speak to the resourcefulness and persistence of America's immigrants, who did not want to be without the beloved varieties they grew in the Old World. Stories abound of precious seeds being hidden in suitcases or stitched into dress linings before immigrants made their way here, unsure of finding their favorite seeds in their new home.

"It's a folk vegetable," says Nabhan, "one that has heritage embedded in it." These time-tested varieties also bear an implicit seal of approval because, presumably, farmers and gardeners would not have bothered to save seed of inferior-tasting or poorly performing strains.

Some say a variety must be at least a century old to qualify as an heirloom. Others say 50 years will do. Some deem a variety an heirloom if it has been passed down through three generations. Others say an heirloom must have a known past, a traceable story. But on at least one point most heirloom enthusiasts agree: Heirloom seeds are open pollinated, a key distinction from hybrids. That means you can save the seed from an heirloom melon, plant it, and get the melons you're expecting, albeit with some modest variation.

In a row of Black Krim tomatoes, for example, some fruits will be larger than others and some plants more prolific, but all will be obviously Black Krim. If the grower saves seed only from the largest tomatoes on the most prolific plants, the next year's Black Krims should be, on average, a little larger and more abundant than the preceding season's. By carefully selecting seed from the best plants, a skilled seed saver can gradually improve an heirloom, says Steve Peters, production manager for Seeds of Change, a catalog seed company in Santa Fe.

Hybrid seed offers no such opportunity. Plant a Shady Lady tomato, a hybrid, and the fruits will be almost identical. But if you save their seed and plant it, the following year's crop will not "come true," as gardeners say. Instead of bushels of recognizable Shady Ladys, you'll get a varied range of fruits exhibiting different characteristics of the hybrid's parents. Consequently, farmers who grow hybrids must buy new seed every year to be sure of getting the first-generation cross, known as an F1 hybrid.

Hybrid vegetables date from the 1940s and represent an attempt by breeders to develop varieties better suited to large-scale farming and long-distance shipping. Heirlooms, for all their positive attributes, are sometimes low yielding, or ripen unevenly, or don't make uniform fruits. Old-fashioned tomatoes and peaches are often too fragile and thin-skinned to ship, and many heirlooms lack the disease resistance that geneticists have bred into hybrids.

After World War II, farmers and seed companies increasingly abandoned heirlooms in favor of the more dependable hybrids -- "varieties that produced consistently and prolifically, that looked good, had great shelf life, with taste being hardly at all in the mix," says Andy Powning, a produce specialist at Greenleaf Produce wholesaler in San Francisco.

Bay Area embraces heirlooms

But thanks to the farmers' market boom and the commitment of local chefs to local food, heirlooms have bounced back, and seemingly nowhere more than in the Bay Area. At Riverdog Farm in Guinda, Trini Campbell and Tim Mueller grow more than 100 tomato varieties, one-third of them heirlooms. Nigel Walker, whose Eatwell Farm stand draws lines at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market in San Francisco, grows 30 to 40 heirloom tomato varieties a year on his Dixon farm and tests about 50 more. "This year, we're growing every heirloom melon and watermelon in the Seed Saver's catalog," says Walker.

Antique apples from Devoto Gardens in Sebastopol and the Philo Apple Farm in Anderson Valley perfume the autumn air at Bay Area farmers' markets, thanks to old-time varieties like Black Twig, Gravenstein and Northern Spy. Napa farmers' market customers know the Bera Ranch stand as a source for vanishing heirloom stone fruits, such as the prized Blenheim apricot; the freestone Faye Elberta peach for canning; the Elephant Heart plum with its blood-red flesh; and the candy-sweet French prune plum.

Wallace Condon's heirloom potatoes, grown on his 3 1/2-acre Small Potatoes farm in Lodi, remind his farmers' market customers that even potatoes have personality. "I've gone through close to 200 different varieties that I've tried in the field and taste-tested in the kitchen," says Condon. His favorites include the Rose Finn Apple, a fingerling; and Mama Amarilla, a yellow-fleshed potato from South America that he christened.

Beans and beyond

At the Rancho Gordo booth at the Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market, proprietor Steve Sando is introducing shoppers to the vast world of heirloom dried beans.

"There's no comparison between Yellow Indian Woman and a store-bought pinto," says Sando, a fast-talking and effusive salesman whose wares command nearly $5 a pound. Another standout, in his view, is Eye of the Goat, "a big fat brown bean that makes the most delicious pot liquor," says Sando. "It's like free soup. I call it my You'll-Be-Back bean."

Even garlic and onions are claiming old-time status these days. San Francisco produce wholesaler Veritable Vegetables recently added heirloom garlic and heirloom onion categories to its produce list to highlight the named varieties that growers were sending.

In the realm of common vegetables, only corn seems to have missed the heirloom bandwagon. Old varieties like Country Gentleman and Golden Bantam have all but vanished commercially, replaced by modern hybrids that have been genetically modified to slow the conversion of sugar to starch.

"It's very simple why," says Grant Brians of Heirloom Organics, a Hollister-based farm, when asked about the disappearing corn. "To fully enjoy heirloom corn, it has to be picked less than 24 hours before consumption, period."

Corn ignored

Even Brians, whose operation is largely devoted to heirlooms, doesn't attempt to lure customers away from the so-called Super Sweet varieties that have captured the market.

"I would love to find a good line of open-pollinated corn, but that's not where the breeding is going," concurs Paul Muller of Full Belly Farm in Yolo County. Muller's attempts to grow heirloom corn have been largely frustrating, thwarted by disease and customer resistance.

In full bloom now, the growing interest in heirlooms has paralleled the growth in farmers' markets, where these often-fragile varieties can go directly from farm to consumer. Conventional retailers long avoided heirloom tomatoes and stone fruits because they required delicate handling and were short-lived in any case. Consumers and chefs often bypassed the heirlooms because they didn't look "normal" or had cosmetic flaws, a phenomenon that California farmer David "Mas" Masumoto bemoaned in his lyrical book, "Epitaph for a Peach" (Harper San Francisco, 1996). The fragrant and juicy Suncrest peaches that Masumoto grew were losing sales to flavorless hybrids that had a more beautiful blush.

"Heirloom tomatoes in the beginning were difficult," recalls Salinger. "People didn't understand that they're misshapen and sometimes have cracks. People thought there was something wrong with them because they were green, or not round. It took probably three to five years for these tomatoes to really catch on."

Top sellers

Today, the Bay Area's small independent markets such as CalMart, Berkeley Bowl, Monterey Market and Real Food and local chains such as Andronico's, Draeger's and Mollie Stone's have all embraced heirloom produce, especially tomatoes. Brian Carter, Andronico's head produce buyer, says heirloom tomatoes may well be the produce department's top seller this summer in dollar volume.

High retail prices compensate for the careful handling that ripe heirloom tomatoes and stone fruits demand. "There's definitely greater shrinkage," says Joe Abeyta, a Real Food manager, using the industry term for loss. "If we buy 20 pounds of heirloom tomatoes, we're not going to sell 20 pounds." Conventional tomatoes, bred to withstand shipping and picked while still firm, have a much longer lifespan. "You can sell every one of those guys," says Abeyta.

But can you eat them? A ripe O'Henry peach or Cherokee Purple tomato -- heirlooms both -- can trigger what Muller calls "the a-ha moment," a deep, abiding memory of what a peach or tomato should taste like, even for those who have never encountered good fruit before. Consumers pay dearly for heirloom produce, perhaps in search of those primal taste memories or perhaps, suggests Muller, because they don't view hybrid produce as a bargain. "Where's the value when there is no flavor?" asks the farmer.

Yet even the most ardent heirloom advocate would admit that the old varieties aren't always the best-tasting, and that some hybrids surpass heirlooms in flavor. Both the Sungold and the Sweet 100, much-admired cherry tomatoes, are hybrids, as is the dependable Early Girl tomato. Muller and Eatwell Farms' Walker both praise the Ambrosia melon, a hybrid. Some of the popular Charentais-type melons are hybrids, too.

How do they taste?

Similarly, heirloom status is no guarantee that a beet or tomato will taste great.

"If you have, say, a Pink Brandywine tomato and you grow that in a climate that it's not suited to, and you chemically fertilize it, it doesn't actually have the same flavor," says Brians. "They're doing heirlooms in greenhouses with hydroponics. Now isn't that a total misapplication of the concept? It has nothing to do, other than color, with what you thought you were getting."

As Brians suggests, climate and soil influence flavor development in heirlooms, as surely as they do with any produce. Alan Tobey, a retired marketing executive and heirloom tomato enthusiast from Berkeley, says he is consistently disappointed in the heirloom tomatoes grown in hot inland areas, such as the Sacramento Valley. They lack the acidity to balance their sugar, and are never as flavorful or intense as the heirloom tomatoes he has purchased from coastal growers.

A recent heirloom tomato tasting sponsored by the Yolo County Slow Food convivium supported Tobey's contention. On a balmy Saturday evening at the Capay Fruits and Vegetables farm, several dozen tomato enthusiasts gathered to evaluate the relative merits of Brandywine, Marvel Stripe, Cherokee Purple and other heirlooms, all grown on neighboring farms.

"Listen to your nose," urged Ann Noble, a retired sensory scientist in the viticulture and enology department at UC Davis and the developer of the wine aroma wheel. Noble has been working on devising a protocol and language for evaluating tomatoes that draw on some of the rituals of wine tasting.

Against the snow-white tablecloths, the sliced ruby, emerald and gold tomatoes gleamed in the setting sun. Many of the samples, sniffed from wine glasses, had a rich, warm, fruity fragrance, full of promise. But with few exceptions, they lacked that bracing spark of acidity that gives a tomato its backbone.

Nevertheless, even a sub-acid heirloom is a vast improvement over the mealy, fragrance-free hybrids that most commercial tomato growers harvest. And taste aside, heirlooms preserving as a genetic resource, experts say. They may not be commercially viable now, but their genes may prove useful in the future. Even today, says Aaron Whaley, breeders are screening old watermelon varieties for resistance to fruit-blotch disease, a virus, in hopes of breeding resistance into new hybrids.

And some farmers, like Walker, are focusing on improving the heirlooms they grow, by saving seed from the best plants each year to slowly but steadily improve performance. Debuting at the Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market this summer is Walker's own tomato handiwork, which he has nicknamed BTS, for Better than Sungold. "We think it's tastier, but it has that (golden) color and it's from heirloom stock," says the grower. And perhaps in 50 years it will be an heirloom, too.

The best way to keep heirloom varieties alive is to make sure they're grown widely so a crop failure never wipes them out, eliminating them from the gene pool. The heirloom produce revival not only enhances Bay Area tables; it also engages consumers in a seed-preserving tradition that dates back thousands of years. "It's a tradition that's benefiting all mankind," says Peters, "and that to me is what heirlooms are all about."

Late-Summer Heirlooms

Here are some of the heirloom varieties you might find in the markets over the next few weeks, and how they should taste.

Almost any fresh shelling bean will work in this recipe, but cranberry beans are particularly satisfying and have the proper Italian tasteLike all beans, these taste best when they have a chance to rest for a day or so in their cooking medium. With this recipe, I prefer to cook the beans two days ahead, then make the sauce one day ahead and let the beans rest in it overnight.

INGREDIENTS:

2 pounds fresh, unshelled cranberry beans

1/2 onion, peeled

5 large garlic cloves

6 sprigs fresh thyme

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil + more for garnish

2 tablespoons chopped

parsley

1 tablespoon chopped fresh sage

Scant 1/4 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes

1/2 pound ripe tomato, peeled, seeded and finely diced

1 pound dried cavatelli or gnocchi pasta

INSTRUCTIONS:

Shell the cranberry beans; you should have about 3 cups. Put beans in a large pot with onion, 2 cloves of peeled and lightly smashed garlic, thyme sprigs and 6 cups water. Bring to a simmer over moderately high heat, then partially cover, adjust heat to maintain a bare simmer and cook until beans are tender, 60-75 minutes. When tender, season well with salt and pepper and let cool in broth. You can cook the beans to this point a day or two ahead.

Heat 1/4 pcup olive oil in a 12-inch skillet over moderately low heat. Add parsley, sage, hot red pepper flakes and the remaining 3 cloves garlic, minced. Cook a minute or two to soften the garlic and release its fragrance. Add the tomato and 1 cup of the bean-cooking liquid. Season with salt and pepper. Bring to a simmer, cover and adjust heat to maintain a simmer. Cook 20 minutes. Drain beans, reserving liquid. Add them to the skillet and simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes to allow beans to absorb flavors. For best flavor, let the beans cool in the sauce at this point for a few hours or refrigerate overnight.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add pasta and cook until al dente. While pasta is cooking, reheat beans, adding some or all of the reserved bean liquid if necessary; beans should be brothy. Drain the pasta and return it to the warm pot. Add the beans and sauce. Toss well, then serve in warm bowls, drizzling each portion with additional olive oil.

On a night when you prefer to eat lightly, serve this salad for dinner.

INGREDIENTS:

4 eggs

1 pound heirloom fingerling potatoes

Salt

1 pound baby spinach leaves

1 sweet red onion, halved and thinly sliced

8 slices thick bacon, cut into 1/2-inch widths

Approximately 2 tablespoons sherry vinegar or red wine vinegar

Freshly ground black pepper + salt to taste

INSTRUCTIONS:

Put eggs and potatoes in a large saucepan with cold water to cover. Bring to a simmer over high heat and adjust heat to maintain a gentle simmer. Remove eggs after 8 minutes and transfer to a bowl. Run cold water over the eggs until cool, then drain, peel and cut into quarters.

Add salt to the saucepan and continue simmering potatoes until a knife slips in easily. Drain and cool, then peel. Slice 1/4-inch thick.

Put spinach and red onion in a large bowl. Add sliced potatoes.

Put bacon in a cold frying pan and set over moderate heat. Cook until bacon begins to crisp and has rendered much of its fat, about 5 minutes. Add bacon and bacon fat to spinach and toss well. Add 1 tablespoon vinegar and salt and pepper to taste. Toss again, then taste and add more vinegar if necessary. Divide among four dinner plates and garnish with egg wedges.

8 slices country-style bread, each about 1/2-inch thick and 4 inches long

INSTRUCTIONS:

Season the ricotta with salt and pepper and stir well.

Heat the olive oil in a small skillet and saute the garlic until fragrant. Add the cherry tomatoes and season with salt and hot pepper flakes. Cook just until the tomatoes begin to soften and exude juices; do not let them collapse.

Tear the basil leaves into small pieces and stir them in.

Toast the bread on both sides in a broiler, toaster oven, on a stovetop grill or -- the best choice -- over a charcoal fire. Brush one side of each slice generously with olive oil.

Spread an even layer of cheese on each toast. Divide tomatoes and juices among the toasts. Garnish with a small basil leaf and serve immediately.

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